If you want to use VLANs in your Auto Deploy environment, you must set up the end to end networking properly. When the host is PXE booting, the UNDI driver must be set up to tag the frames with proper VLAN IDs. You must do this set up manually by making the correct changes in the BIOS. You must also correctly configure the ESXi port groups with the correct VLAN IDs. Ask your network administrator how VLAN IDs are used in your environment.

Ensure that you have enough storage for the Auto Deploy repository. The Auto Deploy server uses the repository to store data it needs, including the rules and rule sets you create and the VIBs and image profiles that you specify in your rules.

Best practice is to allocate 2GB to have enough room for four image profiles and some extra space. Each image profile requires approximately 350MB. Determine how much space to reserve for the Auto Deploy repository by considering how many image profiles you expect to use.

Obtain the vCenter Server installation media, which include the Auto Deploy installer, or deploy the vCenter Server Appliance.

Ensure that a TFTP server is available in your environment. If you require a supported solution, purchase a supported TFTP server from your vendor of choice.

Obtain administrative privileges to the DHCP server that manages the network segment you want to boot from. You can use a DHCP server already in your environment, or install a DHCP server. For your Auto Deploy setup, replace the gpxelinux.0 file name with undionly.kpxe.vmw-hardwired.

Secure your network as you would for any other PXE-based deployment method. Auto Deploy transfers data over SSL to prevent casual interference and snooping. However, the authenticity of the client or the Auto Deploy server is not checked during a PXE boot. .

Note:

Auto Deploy is not supported with NPIV (N_Port ID Virtualization).

Set up a remote Syslog server. See the vCenter Server and Host Management documentation for Syslog server configuration information. Configure the first host you boot to use the remote syslog server and apply that host's host profile to all other target hosts. Optionally, install and use the vSphere Syslog Collector, a vCenter Server support tool that provides a unified architecture for system logging and enables network logging and combining of logs from multiple hosts.

Install ESXi Dump Collector and set up your first host so all core dumps are directed to ESXi Dump Collector and apply the host profile from that host to all other hosts. See Configure ESXi Dump Collector with ESXCLI.

Auto Deploy does not support a pure IPv6 environment because the PXE boot specifications do not support IPv6. However, after the initial PXE boot state, the rest of the communication can happen over IPv6. You can register Auto Deploy to the vCenter Server system with IPv6, and you can set up the host profiles to bring up hosts with IPv6 addresses. Only the initial boot process requires an IPv4 address.

Procedure

Install the vSphere Auto Deploy server as part of a vCenter Server installation or standalone on a Windows system, or deploy the vCenter Server Appliance to an ESXi system of your choice.

Location

Description

vCenter Server system

Use the vCenter Server installation media to install Auto Deploy on the same host as the vCenter Server system itself. That vCenter Server system manages all hosts that you provision with this Auto Deploy installation.

Use the vCenter Server installation media to install Auto Deploy on a Microsoft Windows system that does not have a vCenter Server system installed. The installer prompts you for a vCenter Server system to register Auto Deploy with. That vCenter Server system manages all hosts that you provision with this Auto Deploy installation.

Specify the boot file name, which is undionly.kpxe.vmw-hardwired in the DHCP option 67 (frequently called boot-filename).

Set each host you want to provision with Auto Deploy to network boot or PXE boot, following the manufacturer's instructions.

Locate the image profile that you want to use and the depot in which it is located.

In most cases, you point to an image profile that VMware makes available in a public depot. If you want to include custom VIBs with the base image, you can use the Image Builder PowerCLI to create an image profile and use that image profile. See the Image Builder PowerCLI documentation.

Write a rule that assigns an image profile to hosts.

(Optional) You can use your own Certificate Authority (CA) by replacing the OpenSSL certificate (rbd-ca.crt) and the OpenSSL private key (rbd-ca.key) with your own certificate and key file.

On Windows, the files are in the SSL subfolder of the Auto Deploy installation directory. For example, on Windows 7 the default is C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware vSphere Auto Deploy\ssl.

On the vCenter Server Appliance, the files are in /etc/vmware-rbd/ssl/.

Results

When you start a host that is set up for Auto Deploy, the host contacts the DHCP server and is directed to the Auto Deploy server, which provisions the host with the image profile specified in the active rule set.

Configure the first host that you provision as a reference host. Use the storage, networking, and other settings you want for your target hosts to share. Create a host profile for the reference host and write a rule that assigns both the already tested image profile and the host profile to target hosts.